Sonora-area turkey producer enters another niche. It’s about healthy soil to grow feed

Diestel Family Ranch has debuted a new line of turkeys certified to be good for the planet.

The Tuolumne County business has earned the Regenified label for its efforts on soil health and related goals. It is an even more demanding standard than organic, which already was among Diestel’s offerings.

The new turkeys don’t come cheap. The suggested retail price is $5.99 to $6.99 per pound, fourth-generation leader Heidi Diestel said by phone Friday, July 12. About 55,000 of the 350,000 turkeys raised each year will be under the label to start, and it could expand.

“We feel it is a big step,” Diestel said, “but there also has to be a market for it.”

The company has become a leader in specialty turkeys since its founding in 1949. It employs about 200 people year-round at its home ranch about five miles northeast of Sonora and five sites in the west county. About that many temporary workers help with the Thanksgiving and Christmas rush.

Diestel accounts for just 6% of the state’s turkeys, estimated at 6.2 million head in 2022 by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The vast majority come from a Turlock plant owned by Foster Farms , which also does chicken in several states.

Most feed comes from Midwest

California poultry mainly eat corn and soy shipped by rail from the Midwest. It can be called organic if those distant farms use no synthetic fertilizers or pesticides.

Diestel added organic in 1999. More recently, it got into pasture-raised turkeys, which peck at grass and other food on the home ranch, supplemented by corn and soy. The new certification is for the latter birds.

The practice is known as regenerative agriculture and is monitored by a Dallas-based outfit called Regenified. It seeks to build up soil fertility and capture carbon to ease climate change.

Diestel also has purchased its first 650 tons of certified corn from an Illinois grower.

“Diestel is leading the industry into the future,” Regenified CEO Salar Shemirani said in a news release. “Their commitment to regenerative agriculture extends beyond the farm and the environment, positively impacting the entire supply chain through off-farm purchases of regenerative feed.”

Pecked-over land can recover

The home ranch uses “rotational grazing,” which allows patches of ground to recover after the turkeys are moved to another spot.

Diestel also has increased biodiversity by planting trees, shrubs and other plants on the main ranch. This could attract pollinating insects and enhance water quality.

The other ranches have both enclosed and open areas for the turkeys. Diestel hopes that by 2035, at least half of the total imported feed will be certified.

“If we ignore the animals’ feed sources, then we can’t solve for the future,” Heidi Diestel said in the release. “Addressing how the feed is being grown will bring the entire system closer to a regenerative state that supports the future of farming and our planet.”

O’Brien’s stores in Modesto carry Diestel

The turkeys can be purchased at both O’Brien’s Market locations in Modesto and certain other stores around the country. They also are sold online .

Diestel already turned its turkey manure into compost for sale to the public. And it uses probiotics, a natural source, rather than chemicals for cleaning.

Regenified was launched in 2021 as an independent means for verifying claims about sustainable farming and forestry. Its enrollees include the O’Crowley farm , which grows almonds amid grazing sheep near Merced.

Another group certified Burroughs Family Farms , in the foothills east of Denair, as regenerative. It produces almonds, sheep, olive oil and eggs.